Jump to content

Gold Pass review - Showmasters


Recommended Posts

My gold pass experience very similar and it became more of a mission to accomplish anything rather than an enjoyable weekend that we had been looking forward to.

 

With the amount of money being spent by my partner and I we could have had a two week holiday in Spain instead of this god awful weekend of stress and greif.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LOL DMG, that is us sitting right there in the Gold Pass Palace :thumbup:.

We had Comic Gold and let's be honest: without it we would not have been able to do what we did over this weekend: 15 or so photoshoots and I have lots count how many autographs as well as sit in on Stan Lee's special Q&A.

The only problem we encountered was the virtual invalidation of the end-of-queue privilege especially on Saturday. The queues were so immensely long that even without the need for VQ there was little point in joining them and losing a lot of time. I seem to recall that the VQ system is designed to have a maximum of 25-30 people per queue, well, that obviously did not work on Saturday. It cost us the Jenna Coleman and John Hurt autographs and on Sunday the Carrie Fisher, as we simply decided to do something else instead of standing in endless queues.
Doing the photoshoots with the Gold Pass was a dream, with the exception of Area E, which was somehow run differently.
I had no idea what to expect from the Stan Lee meet and greet, and initially, it looked like something I know from other conventions: we all gather in groups, eat drink and be merry and the guest of honour is led around to mingle. When it became clear that Stan was too tired to do this so instead did a Q&A, I had some misgivings (I mean, how cool is it to sip wine with Stan Lee in your midst?) but in retrospect I am glad it happened this way, most of all for Stan Lee himself, who is after all 92 years old and had worked his ***off to give us all something of himself. But this gave us all an exclusive opportunity to interact with him, and I think this was better than the 'cocktail lounge' setup. This was nice, interesting, fun and I think the best anyone could do under the circumstances. At all times, the safety and wellbeing of the guest of honour comes first in my book, and I ma grateful for the fact that Stan insisted on doing this this way.

The Gold Pass Rest area lacked chairs, as is obvious from the picture, but I don't care about that, I can sit on tables too. I love withdrawing to this place once in a while and get out of the buzz. It could do with a bit more TLC, that's true, though.

In all the buzz we forgot to pick up the goodie bags, so, no comments on that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw a lot of goldpass holders in the long lines for autographs sometimes , but when i asked crewmembers where i should queue with my gold pass they always placed me at the end of the line where the signs with numbers were . So we went through very quickly.

Those long lines usualy didnt have their numbers called yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a matter of course we always present ourselves and our Gold Passes at the volunteer running the queue. Most of the times we were told to join the back of the queue, even if it was 130 instead of the anticipated 30.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As a matter of course we always present ourselves and our Gold Passes at the volunteer running the queue. Most of the times we were told to join the back of the queue, even if it was 130 instead of the anticipated 30.

Queues shouldn't be that long but the gold pass doesn't give you the right to jump the queue and go to or near the front which from what I've read some people seemed to think. It just means you can join any queue without needing a VT and you still join that queue at the back. SImple as that. Different for photoshoots but I assume we're talking autograph queues here.

 

But with proper queue management there shouldn't be queues of the size you mention. 20 or so people is normal except in the boxed off areas where you can fit in more but the queue shouldn't really extend far out of the entrance, if at all. At least that's how it's been in the past. It did seem like a few people managing queues this time were overwhelmed by the crowds and seriously needed help which is maybe where things started getting out of hand in some cases.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

As a matter of course we always present ourselves and our Gold Passes at the volunteer running the queue. Most of the times we were told to join the back of the queue, even if it was 130 instead of the anticipated 30.

Queues shouldn't be that long but the gold pass doesn't give you the right to jump the queue and go to or near the front which from what I've read some people seemed to think. It just means you can join any queue without needing a VT and you still join that queue at the back. SImple as that. Different for photoshoots but I assume we're talking autograph queues here.

 

But with proper queue management there shouldn't be queues of the size you mention. 20 or so people is normal except in the boxed off areas where you can fit in more but the queue shouldn't really extend far out of the entrance, if at all. At least that's how it's been in the past. It did seem like a few people managing queues this time were overwhelmed by the crowds and seriously needed help which is maybe where things started getting out of hand in some cases.

 

 

On the mention of queues, Summer Glau's on Saturday was bleedin stupid!! Stretched from her through photoshoot E (think it was) till a pit boss started moving the queue outwards then and continued past that. How had it got to that stage begin with though?!?!?! Several other queues were allowed back up way more than 20-30 which has usually seemed be case

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

As a matter of course we always present ourselves and our Gold Passes at the volunteer running the queue. Most of the times we were told to join the back of the queue, even if it was 130 instead of the anticipated 30.

Queues shouldn't be that long but the gold pass doesn't give you the right to jump the queue and go to or near the front which from what I've read some people seemed to think. It just means you can join any queue without needing a VT and you still join that queue at the back. SImple as that. Different for photoshoots but I assume we're talking autograph queues here.

 

But with proper queue management there shouldn't be queues of the size you mention. 20 or so people is normal except in the boxed off areas where you can fit in more but the queue shouldn't really extend far out of the entrance, if at all. At least that's how it's been in the past. It did seem like a few people managing queues this time were overwhelmed by the crowds and seriously needed help which is maybe where things started getting out of hand in some cases.

 

 

On the mention of queues, Summer Glau's on Saturday was bleedin stupid!! Stretched from her through photoshoot E (think it was) till a pit boss started moving the queue outwards then and continued past that. How had it got to that stage begin with though?!?!?! Several other queues were allowed back up way more than 20-30 which has usually seemed be case

 

Sounds like it got completely out of control then. I was lucky with Summer, was third in the queue as I had nothing else to do and was allowed to wait for her to finish the first photoshoot. Waited about 40mins but well worth it. Queues really shouldn't go back much further than where the VT number sign is. At least I've rarely seen them much longer. I noticed as I left on Saturday that they were showing 0-700 on that sign for her which is pretty good going.

 

To be fair I wasn't really looking at queue lengths, most I joined were fairly short and I never had to wait long but I got the feeling that a lot were getting a bit out of control.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have one request for pass holders if you have a pass when speaking to crew say where do the gold/silver etc passes queue not just hold your arm up and ask where to queue as it is possible to miss the wristband. When running the photo queues on Sunday I made sure that I always had a separate line for pass holders one for disabled guests and one for standard.

 

I wish I had seen you on one of my photo shoots! I was just bundled together with whoever had a priority pass!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I have one request for pass holders if you have a pass when speaking to crew say where do the gold/silver etc passes queue not just hold your arm up and ask where to queue as it is possible to miss the wristband. When running the photo queues on Sunday I made sure that I always had a separate line for pass holders one for disabled guests and one for standard.

 

I wish I had seen you on one of my photo shoots! I was just bundled together with whoever had a priority pass!

I didnt see you all weekend would have said hi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...